Wednesday, November 12, 2014

APEC Marks a Sea-Change

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2014
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———EIR Daily Alert Service———
EIR DAILY ALERT SERVICE P.O. BOX 17390, WASHINGTON, DC 20041-0390
• APEC Did Not Let Obama Up; We Can’t Either
• Sen. Rand Paul Indicts Obama and Congress on Undeclared War
• New Republic Feature: The Knives Are Out for Obama and Jarrett
• ‘The Other Summit’ Raises the London Banks’ Banner: Default!
• British Sharks Smell Blood in the Water on Cancellation of Mexico-China Rail
Deal
• Pentagon Says Additional 1,500 Troops Not Going to Iraq until Congress Votes
• Xi Jinping Opens APEC Summit by Presenting the Scope of China’s Investments
for Development
• India Looks Forward to AIIB Financing for Coal-Fired Power Plants
• Prospect of Another Rice Revolution To Feed World’s Hungry, Says IRRI Rice
Research Scientist
• Russian Statesman, Scientist Promote U.S.-Russia Cooperation
EDITORIAL
APEC Did Not Let Obama Up; We Can’t Either
Nov. 10 (EIRNS)—A week after his “political impeachment” by American
voters, the leaders at the important Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
annual summit accorded Barack Obama an unimportant role. It was a summit
whose major development and infrastructure initiatives—the new Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the even newer “Silk Road Fund,” the
Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP)—Obama was trying to stop. He
failed, and got neither “refuge” nor “boost” from the downward plunge in which
he was headed at election time. Americans must act accordingly, on their
repulsion against Obama and his policies at that time.
The domination of summit developments by the BRICS dynamic, and
particularly by China, was unmistakable. Russia and China signed a second
major agreement on pipeline construction and natural gas supply to China over
the next 30 years; they also launched development of a hydropower/flood
control set of dams along the Amur River in Siberia. China announced the “New
Silk Road Fund” financing platform for “connectivity” infrastructure
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investments which it was inaugurating with a $40 billion capitalization;
President Xi Jinping estimated China would triple the rate of its “outbound
capital investments” over the rest of this decade, a total of $1.25 trillion, in his
estimate, investment in the development of other nations. South Korea and
China reached a free trade agreement eliminating 90% of customs and tariffs
over 20 years. Australia announced it would reach a free-trade agreement in
China by next week; Thailand said it supported China’s proposed FTAAP;
Indonesia indicated it was joining the AIIB with 22 other countries. China’s Xi
Jinping and Japan’s Shinzo Abe held a bilateral summit meeting which was
crucial to break the ice in repairing their hostile relations of the past several
years. Philippines President Noynoy Aquino sought a meeting with President Xi
to ensure project investments by China would be made in the Philippines as
well. Chile made clear that it would allow nothing to disrupt its large and
growing trade, industrial and agricultural, with China.
Obama at APEC managed not much more than an announcement of more
visas to the U.S. for Chinese visitors—by “executive order,” of course.
Against this new “BRICS” international development and growth dynamic,
imperial/financial London and its thin man Obama had assumed they could use
national antagonisms and rivalries: that of Japan and China, the previous border
and economic disputes between China and India, Brazil-Argentina rivalries, etc.
“Nationalism” in service of what? A Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal
which would give the biggest transnational/imperial corporations and banks
supranational control over the policies of nations!
The BRICS dynamic is going beyond nationalism, to a higher standard for
sovereign nations which sets mutual economic growth and development, and
scientific discovery and progress for the entire human species, as the objective.
This also used to be the creed of “the American System.”
Back in America, small sparks are flying off the stone of last week’s
electoral crushing of Obama. Two more Senators, most forcefully Republican
Rand Paul, declared that Obama’s Iraq/Syria war policy now violates the
Constitution and the War Powers Resolution, and that Congress cannot tolerate
this. The White House then “flipped,” calling off the 1,500 troop deployment
Obama had just announced, until Congress votes on it. Multiple publications on
Monday ran exposés/attacks on Obama’s White House Svengali, Valerie Jarrett,
calling for her to go.
But on the real problem, statesman Lyndon LaRouche said this: “When
Obama was on the downturn for the better part of two weeks, he was thrust back
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into a leadership position, apparently.... If he’s not thrown out of office very
soon, the circumstances are, objectively ... that the United States will crash....
Obama has to be dumped. And if he’s not dumped, then your life, and your
nation, is very much in doubt.”
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
Sen. Rand Paul Indicts Obama and Congress on Undeclared War
FLASH! In a move reminiscent of his unexpected backdown on the Syria war
mobilization, the Obama administration, in a sudden flip, announced today that
it would seek a Congressional vote, authorizing $5.6 billion to pay for the
additional 1,500 troops, before they are sent to Iraq. [See Strategic War Danger]
Nov. 10 (EIRNS)—Not only is Obama flouting the law with his undeclared
war against ISIS, but Congress itself is shirking its Constitutional duties by not
demanding a vote. So says Sen. Rand Paul today, in a stinging column in the
Daily Beast, which he titles “Obama’s ISIS War Is Illegal.” Nothing less than
our survival as a Constitutional Republic is at stake.
Republican conservatives can’t have it both ways, Paul argues, railing
against Obama for Executive Actions on immigration and Obamacare while
silently acquiescing to his lawlessness in the war against ISIS, just because they
agree with him on that topic. Democrats, too—who “for a generation” were
known for standing against Presidential military overreach—need to stand up, or
risk that their “principled resistance” will shrink to nothing more than pragmatic
partisan politics.
Paul chastises Kerry for his hypocrisy, noting that, “the most visible liberal
proponent of unlimited war-making powers” of today, was once famous as an
anti-war liberal decades ago, “considering his previous principled stance against
unwarranted intervention, in Vietnam.” He then turns to those “prominent
Republicans from the interventionist wing” of the party, who like to “parrot” the
Secretary. Paul wryly adds “If ever there was too much bipartisanship, it would
be the bipartisan acceptance of unlimited Presidential war-making power.”
Paul then defends the legacy of Constitutional authority in war-making
powers, attacking conservative poster boy John Yoo, exposing the tortured logic
on which conservatives base their justification. Proponents of this thought
should realize that it also negates the Bill of Rights, and sets up for potential
dictatorship by the Executive. “For those who argue but this will only occur in
the dangerous time of war, realize that we are now engaged in war that has no
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temporal or geographic limits. Realize that we now have soldiers fighting a war
that began when they were toddlers and shows no signs of ending.”
“It’s time for conservatives to say enough is enough,” Paul concludes.
“Obama’s commandeering of Congress’ powers—from making war, to
remaking our health-care system—has to stop. There needs to be an across-theboard,
consistent defense of the constitutional separation of powers. Nothing less
will win the day. That should include this current battle in the Middle East.
Taking military action against ISIS is justified. The President acting without
Congress is not.”
New Republic Feature: The Knives Are Out for Obama and Jarrett
Nov. 10 (EIRNS)—Under the headline, “The Obama Whisperer,” New Republic
senior editor Noam Scheiber has published a very lengthy Nov. 9 feature,
riddled with countless damaging leaks against the British Crown asset, “Senior
Advisor” to the President Valerie Jarrett, and her personal zombie Barack
Obama. The lead picture is a drawing of Jarrett whispering furtively into
Obama’s ear, and the dozens of insider leaks in the story are carefully chosen
and phrased to drive both wild.
Scheiber builds up the drama by reporting that a longtime source who left the
White House years ago is still too fearful to talk about her at all, even off the
record. Anita Dunn, former Obama Communications Director, says that Jarrett’s
role is one of the most expansive that ever existed in the West Wing (the office
wing) of the White House. Besides Dunn, the only other named source in the
article is Senior Advisor to the President David Axelrod; the numerous other
sources, in and out of government, would not let their names be used.
“When administration aides plan ‘bilats,’ the term of art for meetings of two
countries’ top officials, they realize that whatever size meeting they negotiate—
nine by nine, eight by eight, etc.—our side will typically include one less foreign
policy hand, because Jarrett has a standing seat at any table that includes the
President,” Scheiber writes.
Jarrett “has placed friends and former employees in important positions
across the administration,” often telling them, “ ‘You can be my person over
there.’ ” An unnamed former administration official said, “It’s pretty toxic. She
went to whatever meeting she wanted to go to—basically all of them—and then
would go and whisper to the President.... People don’t trust the process. They
believe she’s a spy.”
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The great bulk of the article consists of damaging, truthful “leaks” against
Jarrett and Obama, many of which concern their uncontrollable response to even
the slightest criticism, plus their hysteria and rage about “leaks,” even minor
ones. The intent is pretty obvious,—but, nonetheless, it will surely be very
effective. The hounds and the plumbers are out against Scheiber’s sources, and
don’t even try to imagine what has been provoked in the White House rage
cauldron. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120170/valerie-jarrett-obamawhisperer
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
‘The Other Summit’ Raises the London Banks’ Banner: Default!
Nov. 10 (EIRNS)—At the APEC summit the “BRICS dynamic” was on display,
featuring new international development banks investing in infrastructure great
projects. But the upcoming “G20” meeting, dominated by London and Obama’s
Washington, is preparing the biggest trans-Atlantic megabanks for a different
scenario: default against whole populations.
The G20 “bank regulators pre-meeting” adopted a new rule that the world’s
biggest banks should now hold “bail-in bonds,” up to 15-20% of their entire
asset books, against their own collapse.
Reuters reported that “The Financial Stability Board (FSB), made up of
regulators from the Group of 20 economies, said global banks like Goldman
Sachs and HSBC should have a buffer of bonds or equity equivalent to 16 to
20% of their risk-weighted assets.... The bonds would be converted to equity to
‘bail in’ a stricken bank.” This means the insolvent bank will default on the
bondholders, but give them stock in the bankrupt bank instead. G2O leaders will
vote this rule up later this week in Australia.
Former Bank of England Deputy Governor Paul Tucker presented this bailin
policy of London, Brussels, and the Basel Bank for International Settlements,
at a Washington conference last week. Tucker said the too-big-to-fail banks of
London and Europe would all start selling “contingent capital bonds,” also
known as “bail-in bonds,” which are made to absorb enormous losses when
megabanks become insolvent and default. They will sell them, he said, to
pension funds and insurance funds, not to other banks or shadow banks, so as
not to spread a wildfire of risk in the financial system. The pensioners and
insurance policy holders have to become the indirect owners of the masses of
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banks’ ”contingent capital” which they are going to default on in the coming
crash.
“Ultimately there are only households,” Tucker said at the Nov. 5
conference. “Do you want all the risk to fall back on Wall Street firms?”
British Sharks Smell Blood in the Water on Cancellation of Mexico-China Rail Deal
Nov. 10 (EIRNS)—The Nov. 7 Financial Times of London celebrated Mexican
President Peña Nieto’s capitulation to pressure from the Obama White House
and their internal allies in Mexico, by cancelling a previously awarded contract
to a China-led consortium to build a high-speed rail line from Mexico City to
Querétaro. “The decision is likely to overshadow [Peña Nieto’s] visit to Beijing
on Sunday,” Nov. 9, the Financial Times chortled, “setting the stage for an
awkward encounter with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.” The outlet for
British Imperial interests tried to go even further, asserting that “the decision is a
setback for China’s leaders ... [the project] would have been China’s first
overseas high-speed rail project and could have potentially set a precedent for
further deals.”
China’s National Development and Reform Commission called Mexico’s
move to nullify the bid “unexpected,” while the official Global Times wrote:
“Many people’s first thought was: Is Mexico joking? How can the tender for a
project worth billions be pulled so carelessly?”
Peña Nieto, who perhaps thought that he would reduce political pressure
against his government by this concession—climbing back aboard the sinking
Titanic of the trans-Atlantic financial system, to keep a lonely Obama
company—has instead encouraged the sharks that now smell blood in the water.
Mexico’s Proceso magazine published an article claiming that one of the
Mexican companies that was part of the China-led consortium, Constructora
Teya, also built and owns Peña Nieto’s private home. And on Nov. 8 a small
group of a few hundred demonstrators in Mexico City, protesting the
disappearance and likely murder of 43 teacher trainees in the state of Guerrero a
month ago, attempted to set fire to the large wooden door of the National Palace
(the President’s offices) in downtown Mexico City, and were stopped and
detained by riot police. Although minuscule, and clearly the work of agents
provocateurs, the incident indicates the British intention to totally destabilize the
government and attempt to oust Peña Nieto from office.
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STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
Pentagon Says Additional 1,500 Troops Not Going to Iraq until Congress Votes
Nov. 10 (EIRNS)—Pentagon officials are now saying that the additional 1,500
troops, that President Obama announced will be going to Iraq for expanded
advise-and-assist and training missions, won’t go until Congress actually votes
up the $5.6 billion requested to fund it.
“We need the funding in order to begin this phase of the operation,”
Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren told reporters at the Pentagon, this
morning. “The 1,500 personnel that we announced on Friday [Nov. 7] will not
begin to flow until this $5.6 billion is approved.”
This was reported by The Hill to be a decision of the White House, but it’s
sure to give opponents of President Obama’s Iraq-Syria policies time to raise
uncomfortable questions about the deployment, particularly with respect to
mission creep. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck”
McKeon is expected to press Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey on exactly that issue at a
hearing on Thursday, Nov. 13.
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Xi Jinping Opens APEC Summit by Presenting the Scope of China’s Investments for
Development
Nov. 10 (EIRNS)—At the start of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) summit which since has clearly been dominated by China’s economic
growth and development strategies, President Xi Jinping discussed the scope of
China’s ongoing and planned investments in developing the rest of the world.
Chinese offshore investment will reach $1.25 trillion by the end of this
decade, announced Xi in his Sunday opening speech as host of the summit. At
the same time, according to the Financial Times, he unveiled a $40 billion
contribution to a new China-initiated “Silk Road Fund” separate from the new
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). The Silk Road Fund is intended to
invest in infrastructure for “connectivity” (rail, roads, power lines, pipelines,
communications) along the land-bridge corridors across Eurasia and to the
Mediterranean.
Xi, again as his speech is reported in the Financial Times, said the fund
would be open to participation from other countries and investors, and would
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invest in infrastructure and natural resource development as well as financial and
industrial cooperation between countries from China to Europe.
China has become a net exporter of capital, and the $1.25 trillion “outbound
direct investment” by 2020 represents a tripling of existing Chinese activity.
The Chinese government maintains controls on both the export and import of
capital—in order to defend itself from flows of “hot money” originating with
U.S. and Japanese central bank money-printing. It also does not want to allow
China’s huge internal savings to become outward-bound “hot money” washing
over the international financial system. But through the use of multiple,
multilateral development banks, China will be able to invest larger and larger
amounts of capital abroad in infrastructure, including attracting Chinese
domestic savings into this process.
India Looks Forward to AIIB Financing for Coal-Fired Power Plants
Nov. 10 (EIRNS)—India, a founding member of the Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank (AIIB) sponsored by China and proposed by 21 Asian nations,
wants the bank to fund its future coal-based power plants. AIIB will be formally
set up in 2015 and its articles of agreement will be ready only by the end of this
year.
An unnamed Indian official told Reuters on Nov. 6 that the World Bank had
cut off funding for coal-fired plants except in “rare circumstances” last year, in a
bid to support “low-carbon growth.” “When you have 1.3 billion people starved
of electricity access and the rest of the world has created a carbon space, at this
point denying funding is denying access to cheap energy,” the official said.
India is extremely short of electrical power and has not acquired the
capability to manufacture a large number of nuclear power reactors to meet even
a fraction of its immediate requirement. India already mines about 500 million
tons of coal. But its coal requirement is expected to double in next five years.
Piyush Goyal, minister of state for power, coal, new and renewable energy,
speaking at the India Economic Summit held in New Delhi from Nov. 4-6, said
India needs to dig twice as much coal as it does today if it is to meet its soaring
energy demand. Describing coal as an essential input for power, Goyal said: “I
see India coal production doubling in the next five years. It makes about 500
million tons hopefully this year. We [will] do a billion tons in 2019.”
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SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE
Prospect of Another Rice Revolution To Feed World’s Hungry, Says IRRI Rice
Research Scientist
Nov. 10 (EIRNS)—Citing two senior scientists, Dr. Jauhar Ali and Li Zhi-Kang,
Asia Sentinel correspondent John Berthelsen said the world could be on the
verge of experiencing another rice revolution. Berthelsen said the variety, Green
Super Rice, developed jointly by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, has the
potential to feed millions who now go hungry.
The target is to plant 20 million hectares in another 10 years, according to
Dr. Ali, who is the regional project coordinator at IRRI. Next year, as much as 1
million hectares in Asia and Africa will be planted in the new strains, which
have been produced by intricate crossbreeding and back-crossbreeding to
produce multiple strains that are more resistant to salinity, more impervious to
drought and disease, and can achieve above-average yields without the use of
fertilizers or pesticides, making them environmentally safe, Dr. Ali told
Berthelsen in a recent telephone interview.
The article says some 25,000 hectares have been planted in Vietnam and
another 5,700 hectares in the Philippines. Additional lines have been planted in
India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and other countries, achieving yields far above
conventional strains and impelling farmers to ask for more. Those 5,700 hectares
being planted in the Philippines are expected to produce 90,000 tons of rice. “At
that point, they realized they have gold on their hands,” Ali reportedly told Asia
Sentinel.
Research to come up with Green Super Rice—which does not involve
genetic modification, making its strains acceptable to anti-GMO activists—
began in 1998 with the launch of an international rice molecular breeding
program originally involving more than 18 countries and 36 institutions.
Funding constraints eventually reduced the program to just IRRI and the Chinese
Academy, Asia Sentinel said.
Russian Statesman, Scientist Promote U.S.-Russia Cooperation
Nov. 10 (EIRNS)—The Russian Federation’s top U.S. diplomat, and the
respected former director of Russia’s Space Science Institute, consider
continuing Russian-American cooperation in science to be a priority. Russia
Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak, in Boston Nov. 8 for a conference of
the Russian-speaking Academic Science Association (RASA), said that Russia is
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“not in the mood of reviving [the] Cold War.” Although we are going through
some difficulties, he said, “science relations have been, and will be, a priority for
us, as I hope they are for our American colleagues, too.” The Russian Embassy
co-sponsored the conference, along with the Skolkovo Institute of Science and
Technology, headed by the former head of MIT’s Aeronautics and Astronautics
Department.
On the sidelines of that conference, Roald Sagdeev, former director of
Russia’s Space Science Institute, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
and for years, physics professor at the University of Maryland, discussed with
Sputnik (formerly Voice of Russia, sputniknews.com) U.S.-Russian
collaboration in high-energy physics.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Labs has ordered an
advanced particle accelerator from Russia’s Siberian science city of
Novosibirsk. The synchrotron radiation produced by the accelerator will be used
for research in biology, chemistry, and physics, Sagdeev explained. Various
designs were considered, but the Russian one was considered the best.
Brookhaven’s accelerators are used by the Department of Energy and
NASA, to study the effect of radiation on different materials, and on simulated
human tissue, in preparation for long-duration space flight, and to study disease.
“Thank God that the sanctions and the deterioration of the situation did not stop
the project,” said Sagdeev.
The sanctions against Russia have had a range of effects on science
collaboration. Despite posturing and threats from both sides, cooperation
continues unaffected on the International Space Station, and on other joint space
projects that are already underway. Most disrupted are visits by scientists and
participation at international meetings. U.S. scientists do not know, often until
the 11th hour, if they will be allowed to attend scientific meetings in Russia, nor
Russian scientists if they will be granted visas by a country enforcing sanctions;
they were barred from the International Astronautical Congress in Toronto, in
September.

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